Learning foreign/world languages in the USA

This is a continuation of “There is NOTHING wrong with making English the official language of the USA” http://arcticchill.wordpress.com/2010/01/31/there-is-nothing-wrong-with-making-english-the-official-language-of-the-usa/  I ended with a claim that a good official-language policy increases our knowledge and competitiveness in a globalized world.  I will explain my claim here.  Will my logic make sense to you?  I don’t know, but certainly hope it will.

Many people worry that having English as our official language will hurt our proficiency of other languages.  I don’t agree, but I understand the concern.  The foreign language education, generally speaking, is not satisfactory in this country.  School start foreign language classes too late.  Some students don’t learn new languages until 8th grade, or around 13 years of age.  By contrast, some countries start teaching foreign languages before students reach their teens.  This lag can make a huge difference because it is easier to learn a new language at a younger age.  You certainly can still achieve higher proficiency if you start in adulthood, but it generally will take you longer to do so.  Some schools in the USA are teaching foreign languages in elementary schools (grades K-5), but these are the minority and they don’t offer a lot of language selections either.

On the other hand, our system is not very good at utilizing existing resources.  I know that many parents, immigrants or not, send their children to foreign language schools on the weekends.  These languages aren’t commonly taught in the American education system.  The vast majority of regular schools, however, don’t recognize the knowledge gained through outside and self studies.  I only know of one school district in my state with a program awarding students credits or advanced placements if they can demostrated their foreign language proficiency.  Colleges and universities are more willing at determining the students’ proficiency before asking them to register for any foreign language classes. 

So how would a good official-language policy improve the learning of foreign languages in this country?  It can do so by requiring proficiency in English and at least 1 (one) foreign language.  By connection these two requirements together, we recognize the importance of a common language, national heritage, and linguistic diversity.  Now that I think about it, maybe I will blog on tips for learning languages later.

Thank you for reading.

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